Student Teachers Negotiating the Teachers’ Professional Identity

Recent studies in education, especially in South Africa, have shown that teachers’ professional identity is a fluid concept, which is continually changing. In this qualitative case study, the researcher explores how student teachers negotiate teachers’ professional identity when facing their teaching practice sessions. Seven student teachers were used as participants for the study and the data was generated using semi-structured interviews and was analyzed using grounded analyses. Student teachers enumerated a number of challenges, which come with becoming a teacher. The research suggests that being and/or becoming a teacher is a function of knowledge about syllabus, lesson delivery, content and pedagogy. Teacher education should therefore develop programs, which will cater for all the components of teaching, making it easy for student teachers to negotiate teachers’ professional identity.